Keith Lockhart, longtime conductor of the Boston Pops, said Wednesday “there is a lot of blame to be spread around” for the turmoil that has engulfed the Boston Symphony Orchestra, noting that the BSO for years has been “living on borrowed time.” - Boston Globe
“These experiences allow people with money but little musical ability to roleplay composer and conductor — for a price. This development flows naturally from this era’s extreme inequality as well as classical music’s precarious state, even in such historically generous countries as Germany. It risks reshaping the art itself to align with the whims of wealthy dilettantes.” - The...
“In 1944 during the German army’s retreat, the 1719 ‘Lauterbach’ Stradivari violin was looted from the Warsaw Museum in Poland. … The violin’s value is estimated at €10 million. … Now, more than 80 years later, notice has been taken of an instrument which may be the looted violin.” - The Strad
There's a slight change to the all-tickets-for-$11-or-name-your-price scheme for next year: subscribers get first crack at tickets. And what is this "timely" Gershwin show? It's Let 'Em Eat Cake, about a fictional US President who loses his re-election bid and tries to overturn the result. - WHYY (Philadelphia)
The new two-year agreement, effective Sept. 1, includes a 2.5% salary increase each year as well as what are described as “temporary changes to hiring practices” in order to reduce expenses by $2 million. - Pioneer Press (Minneapolis-St. Paul)
Boston Baroque was founded back in 1973 by harpsichordist/conductor Martin Pearlman, who stepped down as artistic director last year. His successor, as of this coming season, is Marc Minkowski, who has amassed an estimable discography with Les Musiciens du Louvre, the Baroque orchestra he founded in France in 1982. - Moto Perpetuo
A play lives in language. An opera lives in duration. One moment in an opera can expand for five minutes. Maybe you give the composer a full sentence. They might take one word and heighten it, expand it even more. Maybe the whole sentence disappears into music. - The Paris Review
After months of protests from musicians and others over the slender qualifications of conductor Beatrice Venezi, the board of La Fenice confirmed her appointment and it looked like she was all set. Then she trash-talked the opera house and its audience to an Argentine newspaper. - The Guardian
In his new position, Rumanes said, he raised “serious and legitimate alarm” over the company’s business practices. As a result, he says, he was “unlawfully terminated,” according to the lawsuit filed Thursday in Los Angeles County Superior Court. - Los Angeles Times
"As a librettist, I’m always aware that I’m serving the music. It’s a humbling experience. Coming from the world of theater is a good thing, because theater is all about collaboration and interpretation—you place the work in the hands of others, and it begins to transform.” - Paris Review
“Nothing will halt the American addiction to handing out hunks of gilt. For all the supposed independent spirit of the republic, its citizens seem to secretly yearn for the honours system they abandoned in 1776.” - Irish Times
That is to say, “classical” music, and they’re not just for noobs - “There’s plenty for experts to enjoy, too, including detailed structural analyses of specific symphonies and the historical context behind them.” - The New York Times
“There is something in the embodied expression of a trained singer, on stage, in a room with other human beings, that no synthetic content can touch. But in an age when AI generates infinite aesthetic stuff at effectively zero cost, ‘irreplaceable’ needs to be made explicit.” - Opera America
